Friends, I would like to share a curious info I found recently when I was crunching some numbers to find the most consistent DPR for my next Dwarf Ranger (Gloomstalker) who will be a Crossbow Expert.
TLDR: To use the most of Crossbow Expert feat, Rangers should use both the Heavy Crossbow and Hand Crossbow.
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
People usually pay attention only to the third clause of the feat (as someone pointed out in the Natural Explorer topic), but the fact that a Gloomstalker can attack three times with d10 weapon when employing Dread Ambusher is huge. Add some Hunter’s Mark and you will have a great avg DPR of 35. And from second round onwards, if the enemy is still alive, drop the Heavy Crossbow, get your Hand Crossbow and just follow-up with the regular three attacks routine.
I always thought people rated the hand crossbow+ CBE too highly. I would much rather have more than 30ft range. The defensive boon from further range means more than the damage to me.
But also the ability to use range in melee as a backup for unplanned close range scenarios.
That is actually a great observation, Rosco. Heavy Crossbow has a range of 100 ft, reinforcing that a truly competent crossbow expert will always employ both weapons.
They can both be used depending on what you’re fighting and the feats you’ve selected. If your going up against a large or strong creature that is a wall of hitpoints and hunters mark is useful in that fight, then your bonus action is spoken for by the cast or retarget of the spell, so the first round a heavy crossbow is the answer. On the 2nd round and onward a hand crossbow keeps that damage going.
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
When you factor in chance to hit it is not superior, 3 different builds (numbers include crits):
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with heavy x-bow +HM against AC 15: 20.7 DPR
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with hand x-bow, no HM against AC15: 22.8DPR
level 8, 20 Dex archery with longbow and +HM AC15: 21.6 DPR
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
When you factor in chance to hit it is not superior, 3 different builds (numbers include crits):
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with heavy x-bow +HM against AC 15: 20.7 DPR
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with hand x-bow, no HM against AC15: 22.8DPR
level 8, 20 Dex archery with longbow and +HM AC15: 21.6 DPR
Well yea but like I pointed out before, the 2nd round could potentially be spent attacking the same creature if it’s got a lot of hitpoints.
so the hand crossbow sharpshooter pulls ahead first round by 2.1 DPR, but if the heavy crossbow user switched to a hand crossbow after they used hunters mark the first round then they’d increase up do a 28.05 DPR, which averages out to a 24.375 DPR over the two turns.
that’s why it can potentially pay off to use both.
hunters mark is a concentration spell with a fairly long duration, so there’s also a decent chance that you might already have it up to be using anyways at the start of a combat.
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
When you factor in chance to hit it is not superior, 3 different builds (numbers include crits):
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with heavy x-bow +HM against AC 15: 20.7 DPR
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with hand x-bow, no HM against AC15: 22.8DPR
level 8, 20 Dex archery with longbow and +HM AC15: 21.6 DPR
Well yea but like I pointed out before, the 2nd round could potentially be spent attacking the same creature if it’s got a lot of hitpoints.
so the hand crossbow sharpshooter pulls ahead first round by 2.1 DPR, but if the heavy crossbow user switched to a hand crossbow after they used hunters mark the first round then they’d increase up do a 28.05 DPR, which averages out to a 24.375 DPR over the two turns.
that’s why it can potentially pay off to use both.
hunters mark is a concentration spell with a fairly long duration, so there’s also a decent chance that you might already have it up to be using anyways at the start of a combat.
Sure, but it takes 8 levels to get fully into that build and it is a very narrow build. It is no better than a longbow user for the first 7 levels and even after it comes online your saves, skills and attacks with anything other than a crossbow are substantially worse. Finally you are going to have to carry a lot of weight between a heavy xbow, a light xbow and bolts. You are going to use about 60 bolts every adventuring day.
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
When you factor in chance to hit it is not superior, 3 different builds (numbers include crits):
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with heavy x-bow +HM against AC 15: 20.7 DPR
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with hand x-bow, no HM against AC15: 22.8DPR
level 8, 20 Dex archery with longbow and +HM AC15: 21.6 DPR
Well yea but like I pointed out before, the 2nd round could potentially be spent attacking the same creature if it’s got a lot of hitpoints.
so the hand crossbow sharpshooter pulls ahead first round by 2.1 DPR, but if the heavy crossbow user switched to a hand crossbow after they used hunters mark the first round then they’d increase up do a 28.05 DPR, which averages out to a 24.375 DPR over the two turns.
that’s why it can potentially pay off to use both.
hunters mark is a concentration spell with a fairly long duration, so there’s also a decent chance that you might already have it up to be using anyways at the start of a combat.
Sure, but it takes 8 levels to get fully into that build and it is a very narrow build. It is no better than a longbow user for the first 7 levels and even after it comes online your saves, skills and attacks with anything other than a crossbow are substantially worse. Finally you are going to have to carry a lot of weight between a heavy xbow, a light xbow and bolts. You are going to use about 60 bolts every adventuring day.
It doesn’t take 8 levels, it can be achieved at level 5 with a variant human or custom lineage. If crossbow expert is chosen at level one then it out performs quite a few things, including a longbow.
I’m just going to ignore the ammunition references, since everyone else seems to.
It doesn’t take 8 levels, it can be achieved at level 5 with a variant human or custom lineage. If crossbow expert is chosen at level one then it out performs quite a few things, including a longbow.
I’m just going to ignore the ammunition references, since everyone else seems to.
Might be wrong, but for me I'd sum up ECMO's point to be that the complicated (and IMO slightly cheesey-feeling) crossbow build is only marginally more damaging than a straight DEX / longbow build, with the latter also getting better DEX saves, skills, and likely a point of AC. You'll also have a bonus action up your sleeve more often, for what it's worth.
If that does it for you, go nuts. I'd say it's probably not worth the decrease in versatility.
But that was the whole thing I have tried to avoid:
- No Variant Human or Custom Lineage; honestly we cannot assume everyone who wants to optimize will always play these races
- No Sharpshooter because with -5/+10, attacking 3-4 times is always the best decision to take against regular average AC.
- From levels 1 and 2, Heavy Crossbow outperforms everything since it’s a bigger dice and you just have one attack anyway.
- At level 3, once you get Dread Ambusher, you need to be more tactical because you cannot shoot twice with a Heavy Crossbow without CBE in the first round, so you should ideally start your combats with a Longbow, drop it and then from second round onwards follow-up regularly with a Heavy Crossbow.
- At level 4, you finally get CBE, but you are still limited to one attack routine, attacking twice only in the first round of combat. Because of that, specifically at this level attack twice with Hand Crossbow + Favored Foe is better than attacking once with Heavy Crossbow + Hunters Mark.
- At level 5, then, Heavy Crossbow starts getting better once again because your second extra attack. Ideal first round of combat should always be cast Hunters Mark and then attack three times with a Heavy Crossbow (35.3 avg damage). Then second round onwards it’s better to attack three times with the Hand Crossbow.
I use a DPR calculator that factors in to hit and crits, by the way.
Heavy Crossbow has 2 issues that make it not as good as Longbow. The range and the necessary feat. Feats are expensive. Even a human fighter only gets 7 feats, and you can easily run out. The range may not seem like much - until it suddenly means you can't hit the flying archer raining death down on you from 590 ft in the air.
But most of the time a Heavy Crossbow user beats the Long Bow as long as you are not counting the extra feat. Which is kind of silly, being an unfair comparison.
The real question is not Heavy Crossbow with Crossbow Expert against Longbow. Instead it is 18 Dex Heavy Crossbow Expert vs 20 Dex Longbow (the assumption is that both will have the Sharpshooter feat and Piercer feats). In that case, they both average the same damage. 1d10 averages 5.5, and 1d8+ 1 from dex averages 5.5. In crits, the crossbow will be slightly ahead.
Piercer by the way is about even - higher damage on a crit, but also a higher chance of regretting your re-roll. Sharpshooter works minusculy better on a long bow, assuming you have the higher Dex instead of Crossbow Expert, because you are less likely to regret the -5 to hit.
I use a DPR calculator that factors in to hit and crits, by the way.
There is one big difference which you need to consider -
Hunters Mark lasts an hour and with a longbow it can be used on essentially every enemy you fire at, you get the extra 1d6 on everyone you shoot at for an hour or until you lose concentration unless you manage to down a target on a single strike,
Favored foe is less damage at early levels and only affects a single enemy and against that enemy once per turn.
For example level 8 16 dex with CBE, SS and favored foe using your BA to attack vs AC 15 is 23.4DPR against three enemies a day. Against everyone else it is 22.8 DPR.
Using a longbow at level 8 with 18 Dex, SS and Hunter's Mark is 21.5 as long as you either have hunters mark up or have a slot for it and you have much longer range, some of your bonus actions available, favored foe available and better saves and skills.
Heavy Crossbow has 2 issues that make it not as good as Longbow. The range and the necessary feat. Feats are expensive. Even a human fighter only gets 7 feats, and you can easily run out. The range may not seem like much - until it suddenly means you can't hit the flying archer raining death down on you from 590 ft in the air.
But most of the time a Heavy Crossbow user beats the Long Bow as long as you are not counting the extra feat. Which is kind of silly, being an unfair comparison.
The real question is not Heavy Crossbow with Crossbow Expert against Longbow. Instead it is 18 Dex Heavy Crossbow Expert vs 20 Dex Longbow (the assumption is that both will have the Sharpshooter feat and Piercer feats). In that case, they both average the same damage. 1d10 averages 5.5, and 1d8+ 1 from dex averages 5.5. In crits, the crossbow will be slightly ahead.
Piercer by the way is about even - higher damage on a crit, but also a higher chance of regretting your re-roll. Sharpshooter works minusculy better on a long bow, assuming you have the higher Dex instead of Crossbow Expert, because you are less likely to regret the -5 to hit.
I'm not counting an extra feat in favor of Heavy Crossbow. My comparison is DEX 16 + CBE vs. DEX 18 + Longbow. It is impossible to get CBE & 18 DEX or 20 DEX + Sharpshooter at level 8 without being a vHuman or Custom Lineage. Hence, my comparison is only valid for other races.
By the way, Piercer is a terrible feat, honestly. There are no mathematical reasons to get this feat even with a d10 weapon. I don't care about level 12 or even past level 8+ because once you have access to Conjure Animals, your regular attacks DPR don't matter that much. That's why I did the comparison across levels 4 and 7. At level 8 you get Sharpshooter and then attacking three times with Hand Crossbow will always be the best choice by far.
I use a DPR calculator that factors in to hit and crits, by the way.
Using a longbow at level 8 with 18 Dex, SS and Hunter's Mark is 21.5 as long as you either have hunters mark up or have a slot for it and you have much longer range, some of your bonus actions available, favored foe available and better saves and skills.
That's why I'm not considering Sharpshooter in this calculation, because attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow for -5/+10 is always the best option. Comparison here is:
DEX 16 + CBE + Heavy Crossbow + Hunter's Mark x3 (Dread Ambusher) = 33 avg DPR
I agree Longbow has better range (but not that much) and 18 DEX is super great, but the thing is that if you are at melee distance as a longbow user, you are screwed -- you'll probably get your backup Rapier or try to disengage or even risk eat an OA to move back. CBE doesn't need to worry about that.
My main argument here is the synergy between Heavy Crossbow and Hand Crossbow for a Crossbow Expert. Several Ranger features improve both weapons like Dread Ambusher and Hunter's Mark.
Fighting an enemy that you know that is not physically strong, but it's quite nimble and dangerous? No worries, drop your Hand Crossbow, get your Heavy Crossbow and use your bonus action to cast Ensnaring Strike.
Facing a BBEG that will probably endure at least 4+ rounds of combat? Drop the hell out of him with three Heavy Crossbow attacks boosted by Hunter's Mark in your first round thanks to Dread Ambusher, then drop it, get your Hand Crossbow and start attacking three times enjoying the benefits of Hunter's Mark.
16 DEX + Heavy Crossbow VS. 18 DEX + Longbow is mathematically the same, but once you start factoring the benefits of CBE against increase your DEX at level 4, you'll see that the feat is stronger and more versatile. At level 8, once you get Sharpshooter, then it's over for longbow.
That's why I'm not considering Sharpshooter in this calculation, because attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow for -5/+10 is always the best option. Comparison here is:
DEX 16 + CBE + Heavy Crossbow + Hunter's Mark x3 (Dread Ambusher) = 33 avg DPR
Don't forget these builds, if you want to ignore SS and theorycraft a dwarf with something like CBE (and a Gloomstalker who's not in darkness):
Gunner + Musket, which gets you Dex 18 + Musket + Hunter's Mark x3. With 65% baseline accuracy for a Dex 18 attacker, that's 34.92 DPR on round 1 (I didn't backsolve what accuracy you assumed, so I'm stating my own so my numbers will make sense).
Dex 16 + CBE + Weapon juggling: enter combat with Heavy Crossbow, shoot it twice, drop it, draw Hand Crossbow, shoot it twice. Assuming level 5 so Favored Foe is 1d4 (if you clarified whether you were using 1d4 or 1d6, I didn't see it from skimming the thread), combine with Favored Foe that's 33.62 DPR. FF 1d6 brings it up to 36.62.
Mountain Dwarf with Dex 18 + Wis 18 shooting a longbow whose bonus action was Ensnaring Strike. The major downside here is there's no reasonable standard for assuming a target's strength save odds based on CR and there's also no reasonable standard for assuming target size. If you can assume both, you can math the odds of successfully restraining your target and thereby making all your remaining attacks at advantage, plus dealing a minimum of another 3.5 damage on the target's turn.
That's why I'm not considering Sharpshooter in this calculation, because attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow for -5/+10 is always the best option. Comparison here is:
DEX 16 + CBE + Heavy Crossbow + Hunter's Mark x3 (Dread Ambusher) = 33 avg DPR
That is not accurate you need to relook at your calculator. The damage with a longbow and 18 dex is higher than it is for a 16Dex and heavy crossbow as long as AC is higher than 9 and lower than 28.
Base damage is the same for a longbow with 18 dex and a Heavy crossbow with 16 dex --> 4.5+4 vs 5.5+3. It is the same base damage and 1 less damage on a crit. However you hit 5% more often (as long as AC is over 9 or below 29). So with each attack with a longbow you have a 5% greater chance of scoring base damage weighed against a 5% chance of doing 1 less. At all ACs this will favor the longbow and a higher dex at 0.55 per regular attack plus 0.775 for the DA attack (assuming HM on all those attacks)
AC below 9 or above 28 the heavy crossbow would be 0.15 (total) better because you always miss on a 1 and always hit on a 20 so they will hit the same number of times.
I'm not sure what AC you tried to use. It looks like it is close to 14 AC maybe? Here are the actual numbers:
At AC 14:
+3 prof, 16Dex+archery+CBE+Heavy crossbow+HM 2 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack. AC14 with +8 means a 6 to hit:
[0.75chance to hit*(5.5weapon+3.5HM+3Dex)+0.05chance to crit*(5.5+3.5)]*2 attacks+[0.75*(5.5+3.5+3+4.5DA)+0.05*(5.5+3.5+4.5)]dread ambusher=31.95 with heavy crossbow
16Dex+archery+CBE+Hand crossbow+3 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack plus favored foe on one hit - this is still a 6 to hit but the calculation is too long to put here because Favored Foe only lands once and when it hits affects its chance to crit. Suffice it to say the answer is 27.51 with hand crossbow assuming you don't hold off FF for a crit. If you crit fish with favored foe then the average is 27.19.
18Dex+archery+longbow+HM 2 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack - AC14 with +9 is a 5 to hit.
[0.80chance to hit*(4.5weapon+3.5HM+4Dex)+0.05chance to crit*(4.5+3.5)]*2 attacks+[0.8*(4.5+3.5+4+4.5DA)+0.05*(4.5+3.5+4.5)]dread ambusher=33.825 with Longbow
I agree Longbow has better range (but not that much) and 18 DEX is super great, but the thing is that if you are at melee distance as a longbow user, you are screwed -- you'll probably get your backup Rapier or try to disengage or even risk eat an OA to move back. CBE doesn't need to worry about that.
An AOO is one attack, back up and eat it if you don't want to be in melee. It is hardly worth taking a feat for.
Also if it is not a sharpshooter build, then you are going to do just as much damage with a rapier anyway and you don't have to worry about cover nearly as much. If you can stay in melee with CBE and without sharpshooter then you can stay in melee with a Rapier.
16 DEX + Heavy Crossbow VS. 18 DEX + Longbow is mathematically the same, but once you start factoring the benefits of CBE against increase your DEX at level 4, you'll see that the feat is stronger and more versatile. At level 8, once you get Sharpshooter, then it's over for longbow.
As far as versatility, keep in mind if you go in melee with a crossbow you can't make opportunity attacks. Also it is level 8 when you get all this online, at level 10 you can use nature's viel to turn invisible with a bonus action 4 times a day, at level 14 you can hide as a bonus action which is going to kill your CBE build compared to someone not relying on a bonus action for attacks. So you spent 8 levels being behind to get this online and it will only demonstrably better for 2 levels before you have regular bonus actions and then falls way behind in 4 more when you have an at-will bonus action. So you will be behind for most of the game. This also assumes you don't have other things from a race or spells that use a bonus action. If you do it is behind whenever you use those too.
After you get level 8, if you are using hunters mark a longbow will outrun CBE+SS. You can bring up favored foe, but keep in mind that is 3 enemies you can use it on the entire day and only 1 hit a round on them. That is hardly reliable damage. So I will post favored foe numbers below but I am not considering them since it is not really sustained damage.
AC15:
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 vs AC 15 (3 attacks): 22.8 using all of your bonus actions.
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 Favored Foe vs AC 15 (3 attacks): 26.04 but you can only do this against 3 enemies all day long.
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 HM vs AC 15 (2 attacks): 21.6 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 dex, SS level 8 HM vs AC15 (2 attacks): 23.8 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS no HM vs AC 15: 19.95 with all your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS Favored Foe vs AC 15: 22.8 agaisnt 3 enemies using favored foe
AC20:
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 vs AC 20 (3 attacks): 10.4 using all of your bonus actions.
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 Favored Foe vs AC 20 (3 attacks): 12.56 but you can only do this against 3 enemies all day long.
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 10.9using no spells or bonus actions
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 HM vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 13.9 using only Favored Foes, but you can only do this against 3 enemies a day
Longbow, 18 dex, SS level 8 HM vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 12.45 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS no HM vs AC 20: 9.7 no spells or bonus actions
Longbow, 18 Dex SS Favored Foe vs AC 20: 11.8 agaisnt 3 enemies all day using favored foe
I don't think any of those builds blow another out of the water. Especially considering CBE is actually lower damage than just a 20 dex in some cases while also having lower saves and skills and gobbling up all your bonus actions to achieve these.
CBE is the opposite of versatility. It makes you a 1-trick pony. Do anything different - use a bonus action spell, use nature's veil, cast misty step. Pretty much anything else and you are behind.
There is still the big point of The crossbows expert feat giving you an option for ranged attacks in melee. The value of this is hard to factor in DPR calculations but it absolutely makes a difference. Sometimes the party gets surrounded or flanked. sometimes the enemies have distance tricks to get right next to you before you can respond.{many good rangers can avoid these "if" they stat and play with certain tactics but it still will happen eventually . especially ships and caves combat.} Not every player will have the option of just switching to a melee weapon.
There is also the few ways to get valid Shields + hand crossbow and satisfy the ammunition property. (repeating crossbows, Thri-kreen, SOME DMS allow loxadon or mage hand). So even if your main weapon is A long ranged one having crossbow expert for the versatile Options of a long or short range loadout is quite nice. not to mention you might have narrative reasons for sticking to a crossbow.
a particular example is in an old ravenloft setting adventure where a particular BBE-fiend could only be harmed by a specific silver crossbow bolt. The "Party" basically has two options, the most common is just use a crossbow, or possibly alter the bolt to use it to silver one weapon. There is a MCDM show as well where only specific arrows can harm a godlike entity. There are even just regular bolts of slaying. now for a Ranger in these situation they are going to want to have every Option available. (ranged In melee, ranged at longer distance, more weapon options. ect.
CBE is the opposite of versatility. It makes you a 1-trick pony. Do anything different - use a bonus action spell, use nature's veil, cast misty step. Pretty much anything else and you are behind.
By using CBE with both heavy and Hand crossbows you get more versatility not less and any one who just uses it with a hand crossbow is handy capping themselves. Because for all your stat options they are close enough in scope For tactics to be the important part not a couple of damage points.
There is still the big point of The crossbows expert feat giving you an option for ranged attacks in melee. The value of this is hard to factor in DPR calculations but it absolutely makes a difference. Sometimes the party gets surrounded or flanked. sometimes the enemies have distance tricks to get right next to you before you can respond.{many good rangers can avoid these "if" they stat and play with certain tactics but it still will happen eventually . especially ships and caves combat.} Not every player will have the option of just switching to a melee weapon.
True, but you need to figure the value of opportunity attacks too and you are losing them if using a ranged weapon in melee.
There is also the few ways to get valid Shields + hand crossbow and satisfy the ammunition property. (repeating crossbows, Thri-kreen, SOME DMS allow loxadon or mage hand). So even if your main weapon is A long ranged one having crossbow expert for the versatile Options of a long or short range loadout is quite nice. not to mention you might have narrative reasons for sticking to a crossbow.
This is viable if you are rolling stats but it is going to be a huge problem for any character on point buy who dumps strength and that is most ranged specialists. You are talking about a heavy crossbow, a light crossbow, 100 or so bolts and if you are going into melee medium armor. That is going to push you up against your weight limit before you add rations, gold, rope, torches, climbing gear etc.
If DMs allow Loxadon or Mage hand to load your crossbow that is fine, but that is certainly not RAW as a mage hand requires a full action to use and a Loxadon can't manipulate things with its trunk. A mage hand holding a shield to provide you cover on the other hand is RAW (assuming you spent a turn setting it up or set it up before combat).
a particular example is in an old ravenloft setting adventure where a particular BBE-fiend could only be harmed by a specific silver crossbow bolt. The "Party" basically has two options, the most common is just use a crossbow, or possibly alter the bolt to use it to silver one weapon.
I think that is anecdotal. The BBEG could just as easily be killed by a certain arrow or a spear.
I don’t think it’s quite enough to relegate the efficacy of being able to make ranged attacks within melee distance of an enemy to the cost of single or multiple attacks of opportunity. There are quite a few scenarios and features within the game that would prevent a ranged player from moving away at all, even if they wanted to. Creatures that grapple or reduce a players movement to 0 by other means could prevent the choice to even provoke the attack.
there’s also the potential impact that the environment might play. Crossbows aren’t penalized as much if a player finds themselves battling underwater creatures since their attacks can be made without disadvantage within their normal range. Bows do not have this benefit. Swimming speeds do not impact range weapons used underwater unlike their melee weapon counterparts.
Am i the only one realising that heavy crossbows cannot be dual wielded. Thus making hand crossbows better since you can make 3 attack ? Even better with artificer repeating shot droping the need for reloading hands.
Sorry but with hunters mark the hand crossbows 3 attacks at level 7... 2 artificer and 5 rangers would literally outrun your 2 attacks with heavy crossbows. With literally 1 more attack chances and literally 1d6+1d6
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Friends, I would like to share a curious info I found recently when I was crunching some numbers to find the most consistent DPR for my next Dwarf Ranger (Gloomstalker) who will be a Crossbow Expert.
TLDR: To use the most of Crossbow Expert feat, Rangers should use both the Heavy Crossbow and Hand Crossbow.
Two Heavy Crossbow + Hunter’s Mark attacks have a better avg DPR than attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow. The only way for the Hand Crossbow to keep up is through Favored Foe. Of course if we factor in Sharpshooter (usually available only at level 8 to all races but vHuman or Custom Lineage), attacking three times with -5/+10 is widely superior.
People usually pay attention only to the third clause of the feat (as someone pointed out in the Natural Explorer topic), but the fact that a Gloomstalker can attack three times with d10 weapon when employing Dread Ambusher is huge. Add some Hunter’s Mark and you will have a great avg DPR of 35. And from second round onwards, if the enemy is still alive, drop the Heavy Crossbow, get your Hand Crossbow and just follow-up with the regular three attacks routine.
I always thought people rated the hand crossbow+ CBE too highly. I would much rather have more than 30ft range. The defensive boon from further range means more than the damage to me.
But also the ability to use range in melee as a backup for unplanned close range scenarios.
That is actually a great observation, Rosco. Heavy Crossbow has a range of 100 ft, reinforcing that a truly competent crossbow expert will always employ both weapons.
They can both be used depending on what you’re fighting and the feats you’ve selected. If your going up against a large or strong creature that is a wall of hitpoints and hunters mark is useful in that fight, then your bonus action is spoken for by the cast or retarget of the spell, so the first round a heavy crossbow is the answer. On the 2nd round and onward a hand crossbow keeps that damage going.
When you factor in chance to hit it is not superior, 3 different builds (numbers include crits):
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with heavy x-bow +HM against AC 15: 20.7 DPR
level 8, 16 Dex archery, sharpshooter, xbe -5/+10 with hand x-bow, no HM against AC15: 22.8DPR
level 8, 20 Dex archery with longbow and +HM AC15: 21.6 DPR
Well yea but like I pointed out before, the 2nd round could potentially be spent attacking the same creature if it’s got a lot of hitpoints.
so the hand crossbow sharpshooter pulls ahead first round by 2.1 DPR, but if the heavy crossbow user switched to a hand crossbow after they used hunters mark the first round then they’d increase up do a 28.05 DPR, which averages out to a 24.375 DPR over the two turns.
that’s why it can potentially pay off to use both.
hunters mark is a concentration spell with a fairly long duration, so there’s also a decent chance that you might already have it up to be using anyways at the start of a combat.
Sure, but it takes 8 levels to get fully into that build and it is a very narrow build. It is no better than a longbow user for the first 7 levels and even after it comes online your saves, skills and attacks with anything other than a crossbow are substantially worse. Finally you are going to have to carry a lot of weight between a heavy xbow, a light xbow and bolts. You are going to use about 60 bolts every adventuring day.
It doesn’t take 8 levels, it can be achieved at level 5 with a variant human or custom lineage. If crossbow expert is chosen at level one then it out performs quite a few things, including a longbow.
I’m just going to ignore the ammunition references, since everyone else seems to.
Might be wrong, but for me I'd sum up ECMO's point to be that the complicated (and IMO slightly cheesey-feeling) crossbow build is only marginally more damaging than a straight DEX / longbow build, with the latter also getting better DEX saves, skills, and likely a point of AC. You'll also have a bonus action up your sleeve more often, for what it's worth.
If that does it for you, go nuts. I'd say it's probably not worth the decrease in versatility.
But that was the whole thing I have tried to avoid:
- No Variant Human or Custom Lineage; honestly we cannot assume everyone who wants to optimize will always play these races
- No Sharpshooter because with -5/+10, attacking 3-4 times is always the best decision to take against regular average AC.
- From levels 1 and 2, Heavy Crossbow outperforms everything since it’s a bigger dice and you just have one attack anyway.
- At level 3, once you get Dread Ambusher, you need to be more tactical because you cannot shoot twice with a Heavy Crossbow without CBE in the first round, so you should ideally start your combats with a Longbow, drop it and then from second round onwards follow-up regularly with a Heavy Crossbow.
- At level 4, you finally get CBE, but you are still limited to one attack routine, attacking twice only in the first round of combat. Because of that, specifically at this level attack twice with Hand Crossbow + Favored Foe is better than attacking once with Heavy Crossbow + Hunters Mark.
- At level 5, then, Heavy Crossbow starts getting better once again because your second extra attack. Ideal first round of combat should always be cast Hunters Mark and then attack three times with a Heavy Crossbow (35.3 avg damage). Then second round onwards it’s better to attack three times with the Hand Crossbow.
I use a DPR calculator that factors in to hit and crits, by the way.
Heavy Crossbow has 2 issues that make it not as good as Longbow. The range and the necessary feat. Feats are expensive. Even a human fighter only gets 7 feats, and you can easily run out. The range may not seem like much - until it suddenly means you can't hit the flying archer raining death down on you from 590 ft in the air.
But most of the time a Heavy Crossbow user beats the Long Bow as long as you are not counting the extra feat. Which is kind of silly, being an unfair comparison.
The real question is not Heavy Crossbow with Crossbow Expert against Longbow. Instead it is 18 Dex Heavy Crossbow Expert vs 20 Dex Longbow (the assumption is that both will have the Sharpshooter feat and Piercer feats). In that case, they both average the same damage. 1d10 averages 5.5, and 1d8+ 1 from dex averages 5.5. In crits, the crossbow will be slightly ahead.
Piercer by the way is about even - higher damage on a crit, but also a higher chance of regretting your re-roll. Sharpshooter works minusculy better on a long bow, assuming you have the higher Dex instead of Crossbow Expert, because you are less likely to regret the -5 to hit.
There is one big difference which you need to consider -
Hunters Mark lasts an hour and with a longbow it can be used on essentially every enemy you fire at, you get the extra 1d6 on everyone you shoot at for an hour or until you lose concentration unless you manage to down a target on a single strike,
Favored foe is less damage at early levels and only affects a single enemy and against that enemy once per turn.
For example level 8 16 dex with CBE, SS and favored foe using your BA to attack vs AC 15 is 23.4DPR against three enemies a day. Against everyone else it is 22.8 DPR.
Using a longbow at level 8 with 18 Dex, SS and Hunter's Mark is 21.5 as long as you either have hunters mark up or have a slot for it and you have much longer range, some of your bonus actions available, favored foe available and better saves and skills.
I'm not counting an extra feat in favor of Heavy Crossbow. My comparison is DEX 16 + CBE vs. DEX 18 + Longbow. It is impossible to get CBE & 18 DEX or 20 DEX + Sharpshooter at level 8 without being a vHuman or Custom Lineage. Hence, my comparison is only valid for other races.
By the way, Piercer is a terrible feat, honestly. There are no mathematical reasons to get this feat even with a d10 weapon. I don't care about level 12 or even past level 8+ because once you have access to Conjure Animals, your regular attacks DPR don't matter that much. That's why I did the comparison across levels 4 and 7. At level 8 you get Sharpshooter and then attacking three times with Hand Crossbow will always be the best choice by far.
That's why I'm not considering Sharpshooter in this calculation, because attacking three times with a Hand Crossbow for -5/+10 is always the best option. Comparison here is:
I agree Longbow has better range (but not that much) and 18 DEX is super great, but the thing is that if you are at melee distance as a longbow user, you are screwed -- you'll probably get your backup Rapier or try to disengage or even risk eat an OA to move back. CBE doesn't need to worry about that.
My main argument here is the synergy between Heavy Crossbow and Hand Crossbow for a Crossbow Expert. Several Ranger features improve both weapons like Dread Ambusher and Hunter's Mark.
Fighting an enemy that you know that is not physically strong, but it's quite nimble and dangerous? No worries, drop your Hand Crossbow, get your Heavy Crossbow and use your bonus action to cast Ensnaring Strike.
Facing a BBEG that will probably endure at least 4+ rounds of combat? Drop the hell out of him with three Heavy Crossbow attacks boosted by Hunter's Mark in your first round thanks to Dread Ambusher, then drop it, get your Hand Crossbow and start attacking three times enjoying the benefits of Hunter's Mark.
16 DEX + Heavy Crossbow VS. 18 DEX + Longbow is mathematically the same, but once you start factoring the benefits of CBE against increase your DEX at level 4, you'll see that the feat is stronger and more versatile. At level 8, once you get Sharpshooter, then it's over for longbow.
Don't forget these builds, if you want to ignore SS and theorycraft a dwarf with something like CBE (and a Gloomstalker who's not in darkness):
That is not accurate you need to relook at your calculator. The damage with a longbow and 18 dex is higher than it is for a 16Dex and heavy crossbow as long as AC is higher than 9 and lower than 28.
Base damage is the same for a longbow with 18 dex and a Heavy crossbow with 16 dex --> 4.5+4 vs 5.5+3. It is the same base damage and 1 less damage on a crit. However you hit 5% more often (as long as AC is over 9 or below 29). So with each attack with a longbow you have a 5% greater chance of scoring base damage weighed against a 5% chance of doing 1 less. At all ACs this will favor the longbow and a higher dex at 0.55 per regular attack plus 0.775 for the DA attack (assuming HM on all those attacks)
AC below 9 or above 28 the heavy crossbow would be 0.15 (total) better because you always miss on a 1 and always hit on a 20 so they will hit the same number of times.
I'm not sure what AC you tried to use. It looks like it is close to 14 AC maybe? Here are the actual numbers:
At AC 14:
+3 prof, 16Dex+archery+CBE+Heavy crossbow+HM 2 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack. AC14 with +8 means a 6 to hit:
[0.75chance to hit*(5.5weapon+3.5HM+3Dex)+0.05chance to crit*(5.5+3.5)]*2 attacks+[0.75*(5.5+3.5+3+4.5DA)+0.05*(5.5+3.5+4.5)]dread ambusher=31.95 with heavy crossbow
16Dex+archery+CBE+Hand crossbow+3 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack plus favored foe on one hit - this is still a 6 to hit but the calculation is too long to put here because Favored Foe only lands once and when it hits affects its chance to crit. Suffice it to say the answer is 27.51 with hand crossbow assuming you don't hold off FF for a crit. If you crit fish with favored foe then the average is 27.19.
18Dex+archery+longbow+HM 2 normal attacks and 1 dread ambusher attack - AC14 with +9 is a 5 to hit.
[0.80chance to hit*(4.5weapon+3.5HM+4Dex)+0.05chance to crit*(4.5+3.5)]*2 attacks+[0.8*(4.5+3.5+4+4.5DA)+0.05*(4.5+3.5+4.5)]dread ambusher=33.825 with Longbow
An AOO is one attack, back up and eat it if you don't want to be in melee. It is hardly worth taking a feat for.
Also if it is not a sharpshooter build, then you are going to do just as much damage with a rapier anyway and you don't have to worry about cover nearly as much. If you can stay in melee with CBE and without sharpshooter then you can stay in melee with a Rapier.
As far as versatility, keep in mind if you go in melee with a crossbow you can't make opportunity attacks. Also it is level 8 when you get all this online, at level 10 you can use nature's viel to turn invisible with a bonus action 4 times a day, at level 14 you can hide as a bonus action which is going to kill your CBE build compared to someone not relying on a bonus action for attacks. So you spent 8 levels being behind to get this online and it will only demonstrably better for 2 levels before you have regular bonus actions and then falls way behind in 4 more when you have an at-will bonus action. So you will be behind for most of the game. This also assumes you don't have other things from a race or spells that use a bonus action. If you do it is behind whenever you use those too.
After you get level 8, if you are using hunters mark a longbow will outrun CBE+SS. You can bring up favored foe, but keep in mind that is 3 enemies you can use it on the entire day and only 1 hit a round on them. That is hardly reliable damage. So I will post favored foe numbers below but I am not considering them since it is not really sustained damage.
AC15:
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 vs AC 15 (3 attacks): 22.8 using all of your bonus actions.
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 Favored Foe vs AC 15 (3 attacks): 26.04 but you can only do this against 3 enemies all day long.
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 HM vs AC 15 (2 attacks): 21.6 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 dex, SS level 8 HM vs AC15 (2 attacks): 23.8 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS no HM vs AC 15: 19.95 with all your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS Favored Foe vs AC 15: 22.8 agaisnt 3 enemies using favored foe
AC20:
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 vs AC 20 (3 attacks): 10.4 using all of your bonus actions.
hand xbow, CBE+SS+16dex level 8 Favored Foe vs AC 20 (3 attacks): 12.56 but you can only do this against 3 enemies all day long.
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 10.9 using no spells or bonus actions
Longbow, 20 dex level 8 HM vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 13.9 using only Favored Foes, but you can only do this against 3 enemies a day
Longbow, 18 dex, SS level 8 HM vs AC 20 (2 attacks): 12.45 with many of your bonus actions free
Longbow, 18 Dex SS no HM vs AC 20: 9.7 no spells or bonus actions
Longbow, 18 Dex SS Favored Foe vs AC 20: 11.8 agaisnt 3 enemies all day using favored foe
I don't think any of those builds blow another out of the water. Especially considering CBE is actually lower damage than just a 20 dex in some cases while also having lower saves and skills and gobbling up all your bonus actions to achieve these.
CBE is the opposite of versatility. It makes you a 1-trick pony. Do anything different - use a bonus action spell, use nature's veil, cast misty step. Pretty much anything else and you are behind.
There is still the big point of The crossbows expert feat giving you an option for ranged attacks in melee. The value of this is hard to factor in DPR calculations but it absolutely makes a difference. Sometimes the party gets surrounded or flanked. sometimes the enemies have distance tricks to get right next to you before you can respond.{many good rangers can avoid these "if" they stat and play with certain tactics but it still will happen eventually . especially ships and caves combat.} Not every player will have the option of just switching to a melee weapon.
There is also the few ways to get valid Shields + hand crossbow and satisfy the ammunition property. (repeating crossbows, Thri-kreen, SOME DMS allow loxadon or mage hand). So even if your main weapon is A long ranged one having crossbow expert for the versatile Options of a long or short range loadout is quite nice. not to mention you might have narrative reasons for sticking to a crossbow.
a particular example is in an old ravenloft setting adventure where a particular BBE-fiend could only be harmed by a specific silver crossbow bolt. The "Party" basically has two options, the most common is just use a crossbow, or possibly alter the bolt to use it to silver one weapon. There is a MCDM show as well where only specific arrows can harm a godlike entity. There are even just regular bolts of slaying. now for a Ranger in these situation they are going to want to have every Option available. (ranged In melee, ranged at longer distance, more weapon options. ect.
By using CBE with both heavy and Hand crossbows you get more versatility not less and any one who just uses it with a hand crossbow is handy capping themselves. Because for all your stat options they are close enough in scope For tactics to be the important part not a couple of damage points.
True, but you need to figure the value of opportunity attacks too and you are losing them if using a ranged weapon in melee.
This is viable if you are rolling stats but it is going to be a huge problem for any character on point buy who dumps strength and that is most ranged specialists. You are talking about a heavy crossbow, a light crossbow, 100 or so bolts and if you are going into melee medium armor. That is going to push you up against your weight limit before you add rations, gold, rope, torches, climbing gear etc.
If DMs allow Loxadon or Mage hand to load your crossbow that is fine, but that is certainly not RAW as a mage hand requires a full action to use and a Loxadon can't manipulate things with its trunk. A mage hand holding a shield to provide you cover on the other hand is RAW (assuming you spent a turn setting it up or set it up before combat).
I think that is anecdotal. The BBEG could just as easily be killed by a certain arrow or a spear.
Really good analysis and discussions, guys. Thanks for that.
This is the calculator I use: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14WlZE_UKwn3Vhv4i8ewVOc-f2-A7tMW_VRum_p3YNHQ/edit
I don’t think it’s quite enough to relegate the efficacy of being able to make ranged attacks within melee distance of an enemy to the cost of single or multiple attacks of opportunity. There are quite a few scenarios and features within the game that would prevent a ranged player from moving away at all, even if they wanted to. Creatures that grapple or reduce a players movement to 0 by other means could prevent the choice to even provoke the attack.
there’s also the potential impact that the environment might play. Crossbows aren’t penalized as much if a player finds themselves battling underwater creatures since their attacks can be made without disadvantage within their normal range. Bows do not have this benefit. Swimming speeds do not impact range weapons used underwater unlike their melee weapon counterparts.
Am i the only one realising that heavy crossbows cannot be dual wielded. Thus making hand crossbows better since you can make 3 attack ? Even better with artificer repeating shot droping the need for reloading hands.
Sorry but with hunters mark the hand crossbows 3 attacks at level 7... 2 artificer and 5 rangers would literally outrun your 2 attacks with heavy crossbows. With literally 1 more attack chances and literally 1d6+1d6
Oops really old thread...
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